New operators of fair train sought
Track owner says $5 million in repairs needed to make 37-mile Nickel Plate rail safe
The rail buffs who operated the Indiana State Fair Train for 30 years and the government agency that owns the tracks on which it ran are decoupling.
The Hoosier Heritage Port Authority is dropping the Indiana Transportation Museum as train operators on the 37-mile Nickel Plate route that runs between Tipton and Indianapolis.
The authority is seeking a new manager because it failed to reach an agreement with the museum on an estimated $5 million in track repairs and maintenance. The port authority wanted the museum to fix and clean sections of track it said were so dangerous that the fair train and Polar Bear Express were cancelled last year.
“Because of inaction on a number of track issues that we asked them to address, we are putting out a request for new operators,” said Michael Obergfell, president of the port authority.
The change means the fair train likely will be canceled again this year because selecting a new rail company will take several months. Obergfell said the transportation museum can put in a bid to operate the trains, but the port authority is unlikely to choose it unless the museum straightened out several organizational problems.
“They have always done a great job, but there was some serious infighting in the last couple of years, and things started slipping,” Obergefell said. “We would want a reorganization.”
An museum's internal dispute boiled over last year, with a group of employees accusing the board of directors of financial malfeasance and neglect of rail equipment. The Indiana attorney general’s office reviewed the complaints, and the Federal Railroad Administration inspected the tracks last spring. Since then, an independent inspector found the tracks needed $5 million in repairs. Many of the fixes are for rotted or missing rail ties. The authority also demanded that vegetation be cleared from crossings and that some bridges and culverts be cleared or fortified.
Last summer the fair train, which had taken as many as 16,000 people each day from Noblesville and Fishers to the Indiana State Fair, was cancelled. The museum also nixed its Polar Bear Express, the Christmas line that ferried 11,000 riders on trips with Santa Claus between the Fishers Train Station and Noblesville.
The transportation museum is a nonprofit run mostly by volunteers who restore and maintain trains and educate the public on rail history. The two trains were it's biggest money makers, providing more than $240,000 in ticket sales each per year.
The museum also runs special trains for dinner cruises, school excursions and a pumpkin train in the fall.
The new operator and the port authority will have to reach an agreement on how to pay for the millions of dollars in repairs. Not all the repairs would have to be done before the fair train could roll again; most of them are needed between Noblesville and Tipton, not the stretch to the fairgrounds.
Obergfell said several organizations have expressed interest in running trains on the Nickel Plate line, including the Indiana Rail Road Co., which operates in Indiana and Illinois.
“Rail is booming for these types of services now,” Obegfell said of recreational and tourist excursions.
The port authority was established in 1995 to take ownership of the track from Norfolk Southern, oversee train operations and represent Hamilton County and the cities of Fishers and Noblesville.
The attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment nor did museum chairman George Kehler. An attorney who represented the disgruntled employees did not respond to phone calls.
Hamilton County Commissioner Steve Dillinger said the port authority was doing the correct thing by seeking a new operator.
“It comes down to a safety issue,” he said. "The trains have not been well run lately. The museum has not been able to maintain intersections and crossings.”
Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317 444-6418. Follow him on Twitter: @john_tuohy.